Simon Gathercole’s,Defending Substitution : Why I Am Unconvinced and Concerned

I. Preface

This essay represents a personal reflection on the work of Jesus in regard to his death. I was struck recently with how young children in a church setting had learned the jargon of how Jesus had died for their sins. I began to think about how popular Christian expressions and explanations of Jesus’ life and death differ from my understanding of the biblical statements. One aspect of this reflection narrowed down to explanations of Jesus’ death as substitutionary. Being a generalist in OT studies, I asked a NT and Pauline specialist for a recommendation of a recent work by a reputable scholar on substitution. He recommended reading Simon Gathercole’s work, Defending Substitution. ¹ Having read his work, not only was I was left unconvinced, but I was also struck by how such an interpretation weakens the biblical portrayal of the grace of God, a point to which I return at the conclusion. Although my response is limited in scope, I hope that it will further Christian theological conversation about the popular notion that Jesus died as a substitute and about our understanding of the grace of God in Christ Jesus.

II. Introduction to Defending Substitution

The main goal of Gathercole’s brief book is to show detractors that a substitutionary model for understanding Jesus’ atoning death can be supported exegetically in the works of Paul (14, 23). ² He defines Jesus’ substitution as Jesus dying ‘instead of’ sinners; that is, Jesus replaces sinful people (14–15). The mechanism he defines as substitution, which excludes the notion of representation, is: ‘Substitution entails the concept of replacement, X taking the place of Y and thereby ousting Y’ (20). In his book, he defends the general case for substitution and not specifically whether Jesus’ death was to bear our sin, our guilt, or our penalty, recognizing that refinement belongs to a fuller treatment (17–18). He also offers various qualifications of what substitution does not necessarily entail: a penal punishment for sins (18–19), ³ propitiation (22), or satisfaction (23).

III. The OT Scapegoat Ritual

In Gathercole’s first chapter, ‘Exegetical Challenges to Substitution’ (28–54), ⁴ he argues that substitution is found with the OT scapegoat ritual that is prescribed in Leviticus 16. It is here that my major objection to Gathercole’s exegesis arises. He takes the OT ritual imagery too literally. First, although people have written much on the scapegoat, we still do not clearly and fully know what is behind this ritual. As with many of Israel’s cultic expressions, it was probably borrowed from one of the surrounding cultures that had elimination rites for removing impurities from their midst. ⁵ It seems that in those cultures, if one’s actions had offended a god, that one could magically transfer the ‘guilt of one’s hands’ to a scapegoat in order to fool a god or demon and draw wrath away from the person or community and onto whatever animal was used for the elimination ritual. However, the biblical writers eschew that kind of magical manipulation. Israel repeatedly draws on the symbol systems of its cultural environment but demythologizes them to fit its Yahwistic theology. For them the sacrificial system was symbolically heuristic, ⁶ not magical. It engaged them in rituals and symbols that taught them about the holiness of God and the destructive nature of rebellion against God, sin. However, the OT makes it quite clear that such rituals had no manipulative force.

On the Day of Atonement, both the sin-offering goat that cleansed the polluted sanctuary by a purgation ritual, and the scapegoat that removed the guilt of sin (the source of the pollution) by an elimination ritual, did so symbolically not magically. ⁷ In the scapegoat ritual, the sins of the community were confessed by the High Priest and transferred symbolically onto the goat. That goat then carried the sins, which are of the realm of death and chaos, away from God’s symbolic dwelling place of life and order into the wilderness, a symbolic realm of death and chaos. The scapegoat was not a literal substitute for the Israelites. We are never told that the guilty people of Israel would be led out to the wilderness and left there, unless they were replaced by the goat. ⁸ For the scapegoat to be a real substitute, sins would have to be real entities that someone could magically transfer to another party and physically carry from place to place. Such concepts are foreign to the worldview of the OT. Rather, the scapegoat elimination ritual is symbolic like other Israelite cultic rituals.

The Israelite symbol systems involving sin(s) serve to communicate a sense of the seriousness of sin, but also of the ‘cost’ of grace for forgiveness and reconciliation. Sin is not a tangible pollution of God’s land or Temple. Sin is not a real monetary debt. Sin is not a real weight that weighs someone down. God does not literally remove the polluting effects of sin or cancel the debt or lift the weight or wash away the guilt or turn his face away or cast sins into the depths of the sea. Consequently, such OT symbolism as found in the scapegoat and sin offering do not teach a literal model of appeasement (propitiation) or a literal ‘eye-for-an-eye’, substitutive justice system (expiation) in terms of the divine-human relationship. All people who have ever forgiven another person know the sense of the personal ‘cost’ of grace experienced in order to offer a restored relationship to that person. So, too, the biblical symbol systems of atonement rituals and images give us at least some sense of the greatness of the grace of God.

IV. 1 Corinthians 15:3–4

In Gathercole’s exposition of 1 Cor. 15:3–4, he explores the notion of ‘dying for sins’ (55) as found in 1 Cor. 15:3 (‘Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures’) to make the case for substitution (56–7). He argues quite convincingly that Paul is relying on Isaiah 53 for 1 Cor. 15:3 (61–8), but not so convincingly that Isaiah 53 rests on his understanding of substitution (68–70). Gathercole apparently understands the servant figure in Isaiah 53 to be some individual prophetic person who suffered and was killed for the salvation of Israel (62–3), whose vicarious death dealt with the sins of others (64, 68), ⁹ and whom Paul later sees as corresponding to Christ (63). This thesis leaves unanswered questions that need to be answered for it to work: Who was this individual? What Israelites were saved? From what sins? And, how did the supposed mechanism of substitution work within Israelite theology? Again, as with the scapegoat, substitution is easily read into the text, but may not be there. And, given the lack of answers to the above questions, I do not find room for Gathercole’s confident interpretation of Isaiah 53. In reality, we do not know the precise historical and literary setting of Isaiah 53. We do not know whom the original audience would have recognized as the ‘servant’ in Isaiah 53. We do not even know precisely who that audience was. We have to weigh interpretive options based on what we do know. ¹⁰

Based on what we know, it seems likely that Isaiah 53 represented an exilic and/or post exilic concept about how some people bore the punishment of the exile for all Israelites and made this association with the suffering servant figure, whether he was an individual or a symbol for a group representing the faithful remnant of Israel. This kind of thinking is already found in Num. 14:33, where the innocent children of the unfaithful generation of Israelites suffered by wandering in the wilderness for forty years until the older generation died. It made sense for the later exilic or post-exilic community of Israel to recognize that, when they received the corporate consequences of the exile, they brought judgment onto their children and grandchildren as well as onto righteous figures such as Jeremiah and Ezekiel. In fact, in Lamentations, the people saw themselves as innocent victims and complained, ‘Our ancestors sinned; they are no more, and we bear their iniquities’ (Lam. 5:7, NRSV). It should be noted that this idiomatic phrase of bearing iniquities in Lam. 5:7 is the same Hebrew phrase (‘bear their iniquities’) attributed to the servant figure in Isa. 53:11 ¹¹ and that it does not indicate the substitution of X instead of Y. The reality is that, in cases of corporate consequences for the sins of a community, some people do end up bearing the wrath of God on behalf of the sins of others. ¹²

We know of other notions about suffering that a first-century Jewish audience might have held, even if the immediate audience of Isaiah 53 might have not. The notion of suffering punishment for the sake of refinement (e.g., Isa. 42:10), as something attributed to martyrs seems to be present in Daniel (11:33–35). And, suffering and dying for others (relevant to Gathercole’s next thesis on Rom. 5:6–8, see below) are motifs we also find in the intertestamental literature. For example, we have the language of someone giving his life in battle ‘to save his people’ (I Macc. 6:44). Moreover, there is the notion of people giving up their lives in martyrdom, so that others will not have to have to do so, in order to fill up the allotted suffering of Israel (4 Macc. 6:27–29). Such martyrdom is even seen as being a cleansing or atoning work (4 Macc. 6:29 and 17:22 respectively). ¹³ Still, the ‘atoning’ martyrdom of 4 Maccabees is not substitution in Gathercole’s sense. It is not the case that one person’s guilt was transferred onto another person for the sake of the latter becoming a substitute recipient of judgment. Whatever combination of motifs the NT writers held in their Jewish, Pesher-like (typological) interpretation that led them to understand Jesus to be the perfect expression of the Isaiah 53 servant, ¹⁴ the literal substitution of X instead of Y does not seem to be in the background. Again, for there to be literal substitution, sins would have to be real entities that somehow could be manipulated onto another person or animal.

Finally, neither Isaiah 53 nor 1Cor. 15:3–4 uses the most direct language of substitution. For example, a clear case for exchanging/substituting one animal for another one is found in Leviticus 27. There the LXX uses the verb allassō and the noun allagma, which are not used of the servant in Isaiah 53 or of Jesus in the NT. So, too, a clear case of human substitution (Levites for the first born of Israelites) is found in Numbers 3. There the Hebrew preposition is translated by the Greek anti, which again is not used in this way of the servant in Isaiah 53 or of Jesus by Paul. ¹⁵ Therefore, in regard to 1 Cor. 15:3–4, I am left convinced that Paul is thinking of Isaiah 53, but unconvinced that Paul is arguing for substitution by alluding to this text.

V. Romans 5:6–8

In Chapter 3, Gathercole argues that Paul’s language in Rom. 5:6–8 supports substitution by drawing on parallels from classical literature to people dying vicariously for another person. He gives illustrations under the three categories of conjugal love, friendship, and family (85–107). The main reason I find his argument unconvincing is that the language of Rom. 5:6–8 is not specific enough to support an allusion to any case that was substitutionary, but is general enough to support allusions to ‘dying for’ someone that are not substitutionary. For example, Gathercole gives a clear case of substitution under ‘conjugal love’ from a classical play, which is also discussed in other classical literature, in which the god Apollo allows a man’s wife, Alcestis, to die for her husband (91–7), although she is restored to life by the hero Heracles. (Gathercole does not mention the conclusion.) This is a clear case of substitution in Greek mythology. However, even though Gathercole goes so far as to state, ‘She [Alcestis] may even be the particular case Paul has in mind’ (97), there simply is no clear allusion to it by Paul.

Gathercole gives another example, under the category of ‘friendship’ in which a man, Damon, offers his life as surety for his friend, Phintias, who wishes to put his affairs in order before he receives his scheduled death penalty for a plot against a tyrant Dionysius (97–98). When Phintias returns to receive his death penalty and have Damon released—a point not mentioned by Gathercole—Dionysius is so impressed by their love that he lets them both go free. In this case, Damon does not die as a substitute for Phintias; he gives himself as surety, trusting that his friend would return. Still, if Paul has this example in mind, again there is no clear allusion to it.

Gathercole gives other examples from classical literature of giving one’s life for a friend or a kinsman or native land (98–102), but they fit better as examples of ‘dying for’ another person rather than ‘dying instead of’. I will illustrate the difference. When Gathercole concludes that Jesus for the sake of one’s atonement died for sins in the same way that sinful individuals die for sins (110), he implies that God accepts Jesus (X) instead of the sinner (Y) in order to achieve the same outcome (punishment by death) of Y’s sins. That case would specifically be substitution as he has defined it. However, when a soldier (X) dies for his/her nation (Y) or even throws oneself in front of a comrade (Y) and ‘takes the bullet’, that is different. Although the soldier did vicariously ‘die for’ others, that action is not the ‘die instead of’ mechanism of substitution defined by Gathercole. X is not ousting Y to bear some consequence Y deserved. And, no one is accepting X as a substitute for Y. At best, in such a case, X merely represents Y as one of the common enemies of the shooter, with the result that X’s death still might satisfy the shooter. However, Gathercole has made it clear that his model of substitution is not representation nor propitiation nor satisfaction (20–3). His examples in this Chapter 3 do not fit his criteria for substitution.

In the context of comparative literature, Gathercole himself throws in a note of caution to his argument that I would highlight. Even though he claims ‘we can see a consistency of language used to describe vicarious deaths’ (102), and ‘the historical links between Paul and the classical authors we have discussed are close’ (102–3), he notes that ‘we do not know if Paul actually knew any of these works’ (103). Correct; there are no specific allusions to them. Still, Gathercole ends up concluding that his examples ‘provide a fitting background’ (103). However, without Paul making some clear literary allusion to any specific example of substitution, one is left with the same generic language that is found in Gathercole’s examples in classical discussions of ‘dying for’ one’s friends, kin, or nation. And, rather than drawing from classical literature, might not Paul be taking his cue from Jesus: ‘No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends’ (John 15:13, NRSV)?

Moreover, Paul’s elaboration on the results of Jesus’ death in the following verses (5:9–10) also does not develop or rely on the mechanism of substitution:

Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life (5:9–10 NRSV).

I want to make two comments about the phrases underlined above. First, ‘justified [or ‘made righteous’] by his blood’ is sacrificial language that focuses not primarily on the sacrificed animal’s death, but on the symbolic significance of manipulating blood that ‘cleanses’ pollution. ¹⁶ My blood is not called for, because it would never cleanse ‘pollution’ and justify me. Jesus’ blood does cleanse, because he is the perfect sin offering for atonement, not because he is my substitute. Second, ‘reconciled to God through the death of his Son’ follows on that image: the death of Jesus, which provided the cleansing blood, results in my reconciliation. If Paul were thinking in 5:8 that Jesus’ death in substitution for me would achieve what my death would achieve, it is not supported by the cultic imagery used in Paul’s elaboration in 5:9–10.

VI. Concluding Reflections

My first thought is a reminder that the range of NT terminology that expresses how the work of Christ enables a right relationship with God is not as focused on, or as limited to, the death of Jesus as much popular Christian jargon is. Rather than just Jesus’ death, the whole Christ event of incarnation, life ministry by words and deeds, death, and resurrection contribute holistically to the salvific outcome. For example, there are the metaphors of salvation for overcoming opposition (e.g., darkness, god of this world, death, Hades, reign of sin). Addressing this area, Jesus enters into the realm of sin and death both by his incarnation and by his crucifixion; and, Jesus establishes his victory over these reigns by both his sinless life and by his resurrection. His death is significant, but certainly not the whole focus. Or, has been mentioned above, the sacrificial language that is drawn from the OT does not focus as much on the death of the animal as on the symbolic manipulation of the remains. We, the Church, deprive ourselves in both theology and praxis if we limit our understanding of Jesus’ salvific work to his death.

Second, and more specifically, Gathercole has preconditioned his exegesis by holding to a literal mechanism of substitution and seeking to find it in the biblical language and rituals. The language of sin, forgiveness, and reconciliation is symbolic. For instance, a main Hebrew word for ‘sin’, ꜥwn, carries a range of meanings including a wrongful action, the guilt one feels, and the judgement received; however, none of those nuances are real entities that can be tangibly removed. Moreover, the OT condemns the kind of magical practice/belief that could supposedly transfer such ‘sin entities’ from one being onto another. The OT language about sin, forgiveness, and establishing a right relationship with God uses images and analogies to help make sin and its effects more concrete, just as cultic expressions seek to represent abstract concepts in tangible ways. We should exercise care about taking them too literally. As a result, I do not find in the OT a literal mechanism of substitution on which the NT writers could draw.

Third, Gathercole has restricted his theology of the grace of God by holding to such a literal mechanism of substitution. Since the biblical expressions of the means by which God offers both a right relationship and the restoration of broken covenantal relationship are metaphorical, taking them too literally leads to theological difficulties (e.g., If Jesus paid a ransom for my life, to whom was the ransom paid?). Also, the substitutionary model of understanding of the work of Jesus not only evokes a mimetic magical understanding of transferring sin entities, but it imposes on God a human, philosophical abstraction of justice. With that abstract notion of justice, a tangible price has to be paid (even if it is paid by God in the Person of Jesus), for there to be justice and preservation of societal/divine order. Not only does that model narrowly apply the OT atonement language of restoring broken covenantal relationship to the whole work of Jesus, ¹⁷ that abstract model of justice is not the model God of bringing people into right relationship or restoring broken relationship that is found in the OT.

The biblical portrayal of the grace of God should not be confined by the above constrictions. The God of the OT unilaterally offers covenantal relationship to Abraham, the Fathers, Moses, and the Hebrews/Israelites at God’s initiative. This is an utter act of mysterious grace. There is no mention of these people being perfect and no mention of God requiring some abstract demand of justice first in order to make them acceptable for a right relationship. God condescends to open up a covenantal relationship with them. And, for instance, when Abraham entrusts himself back to God (the meaning of ‘having faith’ or ‘believing in’), God considers that response ‘righteousness’ (Gen. 15:6). The term used to translate the Hebrew here for ‘righteousness’ in the Greek, dikaiosynē, is used throughout Paul’s explanations of the work of God/Christ and with clear references back to the Abraham event (Rom. 4:3, 9; Gal. 3:6). Therefore, this portrait of God’s grace and the response God wants is crucial to understanding Paul. ¹⁸

Further, when we look at the Israelites, we see that God does deliver, redeem, save, rescue, etc., the Israelites from Egypt in fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham. This important salvific language of the OT carries over to the NT, but it is not technically the language of atonement. As with Abraham, the Israelites are not presented as already righteous, but to the contrary. Again, God does not first make them acceptable. Rather, God first offers the Israelites the option of entering into covenant relationship. The metaphorical language of atonement, as well as of sin and forgiveness for the most part, come in later as God’s way of dealing with how people fall short of their covenant commitment. Of course, there is a necessary human response (e.g., seeking, ‘fearing’, repenting, confessing, re-entrusting). However, my point is this: when the atonement language of the NT is taken as substitutionary and for the purpose of achieving an abstract notion of justice, that model revises the portrait we get from the OT. It falls short of representing God’s offer of grace to which God desires the response of entrusting oneself to God in the Person of Jesus. Rather, the work of God in the OT and NT both begins with grace (offer of relationship) and ends with grace (offer of restoration) in spite of who people are and what they have done. The OT God, with freedom of volition within God’s character and not bound by some abstract notion of justice, in self-effacing humility, offers relationship to flawed people, asking that they entrust themselves to God in response. Nowhere do I find that Paul has moved away from this model. Rather, for Paul the model is still unfathomable grace from first to last.